RE: [RC] Gut Sounds low score - Susan E. Garlinghouse, D.V.M.
Shannon, it sounds to me like you did everything fine and had a good ride,
despite the Cs on guts. A few things to mull over…
Was it the same vet that gave the Cs as
later gave the As? Different vets have slightly different criteria, and
what counts as a C to one vet may count as a B, or an A- to another.
At the time of the C score, was the horse
happy, eating, perky and looking around? Peeing, pooping, well
hydrated? Gut sounds are a cyclical thing, and can be a bit quiet for a
few seconds, or even a few minutes, then go right back to chugging along happily
gugling---no pathology anywhere in sight, it’s just the vet might have
caught him in between cycles.
Was the vet check fairly busy at the time?
If things are backed up, I may spend less time listening than if there aren’t
ten horses in line. I won’t let a horse go if I don’t hear GI
motility at some level, but if I have a lot of horses to look at, plus caught
your horse on a ‘quiet’ cycle at that particular moment, then I
might give him a C or a B, whereas if I listened for a good minute or two, I
might grade him a bit higher.
Was the vet fairly new at vetting
endurance rides? It takes awhile to get a feel for who’s okay and
who isn’t, and if the vet has only vetted a few rides and still isn’t
totally comfortable with it, they might tend to grade on average a bit lower
than another vet might.
It’s not a bad idea for you to get
yourself a good stethoscope (something a bit better than the ones that
typically equip a P&R check), have a vet or an experienced rider show you
where the four abdominal quadrants are to listen to, and get familiar with what
your horse sounds like when you know all is well. Then listen at other
times---when your horse is working hard and maybe pretty tired, after or during
trailering, etc. It doesn’t take too long to get a feel for what’s
normal. There’s a lot more to listening to GI sounds than just
presence (ie, a colicky horse getting ready to develop a torsion often has gut
sounds going a mile a minute), but you can learn a lot about taking care of *your* horse by learning his normal gut
sounds. If nothing else, it’s a lot more likely you will know when
something ISN’T right, whether there’s a vet there to verify it or
not.
Congrats on the good finishes, sounds like
you had a good day with a happy, healthy horse. J
